Google Docs app released for Android

Google has released a Google Docs app for Android phones, letting users upload content from their device and open them directly from Gmail. The app can also recognise text from photos.

The app allows users to search for content across their Google accounts. They can amend documents using online mobile editors and can share them with contacts from their phones within the app.

It can turn photos with text in them into editable Google documents via the phone’s camera using optical character recognition. Users can also convert photos already stored by sharing them within the Google Docs app.

According to Google, while this technology will capture unformatted text in English, it won’t recognise handwriting or certain fonts. However, it is working to improve this.

Users can upload content from the phone to Gmail and open documents from there. They can add a widget on the homescreen to jump into starred documents, take a photo to upload or create a new document.

The Google Docs app is available on the Android Market for Android 2.1 devices and up.